"Admiral Kelvim, we are entering the hyperspace rift. Switching to sub-light." The voice of his pilot broke Kelvim from his thoughts. He had been thinking a lot more lately. He still wasn't used to the title Admiral, but the Psilon military council had been very pleased with his body of work. This mission would likely be his true test. He feared it might also be his last. "Is every ship accounted for?" he asked the communications officer in his usual quiet voice. "The warships are here, as are the capture ships. The salvage ships are about a day behind us." the communications officer replied. "Admiral Vrell of the Darlock fleet is asking permission to board."

"Granted," Kelvim replied. "See to it that Dural joins us as well. Plot a course to the debris field."

Kelvim left the bridge and went to the Captain's briefing room to wait for his guests. Communications in hyperspace were difficult. Long range communications were impossible, though some communications between ships close by were doable. For the most part; however, they had maintained silence. Kelvim had spent the last two weeks contemplating about everything that had happened, and many things didn't make sense. This new Darlock alliance frightened him. It seemed as though they were easily able to destabilize the Alkari. This race was more insidious than he had previously thought. He couldn't imagine the amount of resources it would have taken to pull off something like this, and it seemed easy for the Darlocks. He certainly understood sharing the technology with them. They knew the Psilon's secret, and they would have probably stolen it anyways, but he wondered if they could do to Mentar what they did to Altair. He hoped that their goal would to be one of the two superpowers of the galaxy. That would make more sense then picking a war with the only other species with the technology to stop you, but peace with them was equally concerning. If they could infiltrate the Alkari empire with ease, they could do the same to his own. He hoped he would not be alive to see that day.

Admiral Vrell was the first to arrive, bringing with him a few officers. He was different from every Darlock Kelvim had known. He was smug and cocky, as if he thought that the entire world was unaware that it was a part of an amusing game known only by this Darlock. "I've had a ship spying on the Antarans since you left. We will rendezvous with it in two days and get a report," stated Vrell casually. "We should be able to get an idea of what we are going up against and how to attack it. Hopefully, they won't have many more ships..."

"And how is it that they could see us cloaked and not you?" Kelvim interrupted suddenly. The thought had been bothering him since he had found out about this plot. Perhaps this had been an older device, but he didn't trust the Darlocks. Admiral Vrell chuckled quietly for a moment and confirmed his suspicions. "Did you honestly think it was your skill that acquired that device? We had hoped you would build more and install them in your entire fleet. It would have been a quick and glorious battle, but you kept it on that Alkari garbage transport instead." Before leaving Mentar, Kelvim privately warned the science council that this was possible. They agreed to take extra precautions with the device. He hoped they would figure out how the Darlocks could track it, but that thought was interrupted. "For the purpose of this fight, we will provide you our ships cloaking frequencies. It will allow you to have an approximate fix on our coordinates. It will be enough to give you an approximate location as to where we are, but it will not be exact. I think it would be wise for our ships to take the Antarans from behind."

"I agree," came another voice. It was Dural. He had quietly entered the room. That was unusual for this Bulrathi, and Admiral Vrell seemed unpleased. "I see a cat has arrived," Admiral Vrell stated hoping to provoke a response. It seemed to work as Kelvim could see Dural bristle. The Bulrathi hated all things feline, and even being compared to one was a way to get your arm ripped off. Despite his displeasure, Dural held his tongue.

"Dural will be our battle commander," Kelvim replied softly hoping to ease the tension. "He's been in the service of our empire for many cycles."

"The Bulrathi are quite good at killing," Vrell replied casually. "And getting killed. Tell me Dural, how is it that you came to leave the service of the Bulrathi empire?" Kelvim had known Dural for some time, but even this he did not know. Nor did he want to. "Let's get back on topic," he quickly interrupted hoping to avoid being the center of a very short alliance. "Have you had contact with your ship? How many Antaran vessels are present?"

"We've maintained a fairly strict silence. Our ship leaves the area periodically to keep us informed. At last contact, there were maybe a dozen ships, mostly smaller types. Nothing like the big ships we've seen in the wreckage. We last contacted her about two weeks ago and asked her to meet with us en route in two days from today. Her crew knows our route and we expect to meet up with her at that point, though the timing in this dampening field may not be precise. That said, our Antaran friends seem very interested in that ship. What was in it?"

"We don't know," Kelvim replied cautiously. Unlike all the other ships there, it had no weapons, and it's configuration was different too. It was clearly specialized, though for what purpose we weren't sure. Not that we could say for certain, but its age seemed different than that of the other ships we observed. Older or younger, however, we could not tell. We lost a compliment of our crew aboard that ship..."

"We know," Vrell interrupted. "We knew you had people on board. It would be about three weeks ago now, but we observed an explosion in the engine room. That sent several bodies into space. One was Darlock. Several more Psilons and a human as well. We were close enough to observe that. I'm afraid your crew is now dead. I'm surprised they lived that long."

"We will honor their sacrifice," Dural stated.

"Honor?" replied Vrell, "You cats know nothing about honor, just death without purpose," and with that, Vrell got up to leave smiling slyly at an angry Dural. "I'm leaving this coms officer with you," he said nodding to one of his guests. "He will assist you with tuning your sensors to detect our cloaking frequency." And with that he left.

"You have to forgive him," the young officer responded timidly. "Ten years living undercover with the Sakkra will do that. You don't easily unlearn those behaviors."

My apologies as I've been playing too much XCOM2 to really do this, and with the game going live, I'll probably wrap this one up as I thought I had much more time. I was thinking about doing something from an Antaran perspective, but at least for now, not so much.

Their return trip to the debris field was much like the first. It was a slow going trip in that they were forced to make via sub-light. Outside of hyperspace travel, they were afforded some communication with their empires. The Alkari empire had indeed fallen and had now been formally split up. There was talk among the core empires of forming a Senate, the exact purpose however was up for discussion. None of the empires seemed all that willing to give up their sovereignty, and there seemed as if little could be accomplished other than perhaps curbing the use of certain types of weapons and allowing a few more avenues of trade. The Antaran attack on Altair had been noticed by more than just the Psilons and Darlocks, and that seemed to be fueling at least some of the interest. Speculation surrounding the attack still varied widely.

The Humans had been the first to take advantage. Being the recipients of the more choice planets in the Alkari empire, they immediately began an aggressive building plan of smaller ships, and had already mobilized their fleets against the Sakkra. The Sakkra were likely a bit weaker than the Silicoids, but none-the-less, they presented a foe that Kelvim was fairly certain could not be defeated by the Humans. With that said, however, he knew that Mentar and Nazin were both perfectly fine letting this happen. With some help from the Psilon fleet at Chondata, the Humans were able to conquer the single planet system on the other side of it's wormhole. Maintaining it would be difficult, but it had been well worth diverting that fleet for a few days as now the Sakkra would be dealing with a Human presence in their territory. Given the strategic nature of Chondata, the Psilon fleet had no choice but to return there as it would be exposed to a Silicoid attack if it remained unprotected for too long.

Also of interest was that the Psilons had make contact with a species on the other side of the Guardian. It was a race known only as the Trillarians. They were aquatic by nature, and seemed peaceful. Hopes of potentially expanding peacefully beyond this guardian were now dashed, though the Psilon high command had already been discussing with Kelvim about making this their next target, assuming of course they came away victorious. This battle would happen without the help of Nazin (as they hoped the Darlocks were unaware of its existence), and Kelvim wasn't sure how many more ships he would have at his disposal. As a Captain, he wasn't privy to things like fleet numbers and locations, just what was needed for his next mission. As an Admiral, he had this information. The Psilons had more ships than he would have guessed, but they were stretched thin repelling the Sakkras and Silicods at Chondata. Most of their warships had been on peaceful patrols along their shared borders with the Alkari and Humans. The new boarders created a lot of fleet movements which was a cause for concern among the Psilon military council. The Bulrathi in particular were now within a short jump of Psilon space. Minor skirmishes had already been reported between Humans and Bulrathi in particular. Kelvim suspected this was Darlock work. The Darlocks had their own problems with them as well. Their orchestrated takedown of Altair was spectacular, but it also exposed their true abilities. Both humans and Bulrathi had closed their open border pacts with Nazin, though their trade agreements remained in place. It was now going to be much more difficult for anyone moving from Darlock territory to gain access anywhere outside of Darlock territory. The Psilons had never had more than cordial relations with Nazin, though this new friendship might have cause to remain. The military council seemed to think that as long as they kept he Darlocks isolated from everyone else, that they'd be forced to work with Mentar, and as long as the Psilons had a healthy advantage in planets and ships that Nazin would always look elsewhere for a fight. Kelvim thought this was short sighted, though he was certain it would work in the short term. He wasn't as certain that the Psilons could avoid the type of fate inflicted on Altair, however. The Darlocks were fast and efficient at espionage, and they were really good at it.

Word from the research on the Noveim's findings seemed positive as well. While not completely understanding the technology, it looked as though the Darlock/Psilon team would be able to start prototyping an Antaran particle beam in a few weeks. Manufacturing the hull material would be much more difficult, though it looked like they might be able to mine and recycle existing material, of which they had plenty. The doomstar wrecks around the 3 neutron stars would provide more than enough material to outfit a number of ships in both the Darlock and Psilon fleets. They were already conducting the joint salvage operation at the shared Neutron star. The Psilon controlled star was already underway, and while Kelvim could not be certain of the star in Darlock territory, he guessed they were hard at work salvaging that material. The material the Psilons recovered from those operations would likely outfit a dozen or so ships the size of the flagship that Kelvim commanded. The debris field would be another bounty, provided they could take care of the Antaran presence there, but exactly what was there was a bit unknown. That, unfortunately, was looking to be more of a problem.

Admiral Vrell had promised a rendezvous with the Darlock ship that had been watching activities at the debris field. That ship, however, never showed up. Kelvim wasn't sure what to make of this new development. On the one hand, Darlocks weren't exactly trustworthy, and perhaps this was some sort of trick, but nothing about their behavior indicated some sort of trickery... not yet at least. Kelvim was certain it would come, but the Darlocks had just as much incentive to make this work as the Psilons, and the Psilons were providing the bulk of the muscle for this operation, as the Psilons outnumbered them by a three to one margin. Ship for ship, the Darlock ships might have been slightly better. It appeared that their entire fleet was very new, but they would lose the numbers game, and with this much at stake, he didn't think that was worth it. That wasn't as much the case with Psilon fleet as they had some older ships that hadn't been refitted. His offensive weaponry was a mix of plasma and phasor weaponry with a wide range of missiles. Most of his fighters were carrying minaturized phasor weapons. The Noveim had been able to damage that Antaran scout ship with a well placed aft shot. However, it was really only operating with one standard mounted phasor weapon and a much large compliment of point defense weapons. Most of the newer ships in his fleet had much better point defense capabilities at their disposal, and as such their forward beam weapons were much more powerful. Kelvim, Dural, and even Vrell were confident that their fleet could overpower the Antarans as long as they had a numbers advantage, though they knew that the Antaran ships would exact their toll. They had been fortunate that a large piece of debris had absorbed the Antaran counter attack, if it had not, it would have likely split the Noveim in half. Their newer ships would all be made of Neutronium, which would help the overall structure as the Noveim was an older ship with a Tritanium structure, but that particle beam seemed to have no issues piercing the Neutronium armor plating that covered its softer hull. The Psilon warships all had an extra layering of armor that Kelvim hoped would stand to be more effective, but he was certain that ships would be lost in this fight. The question was how many. The debris field would be worth the price as the recycled materials alone would outfit a number of new ships, and if their capture ships worked well, they might be able to bring in one or two intact Antaran ships. That alone would be worth the findings. Kelvim was most interested in their shielding technology, but their scanning/computer technology would be valuable as well. He was surprised that no one had asked about Antaran shields. This was one thing that had been bothering him, and his contract with D'Vron brought out similar concerns. They had not detected any sort of shielding on their Antaran ships, but their attack did far less damage than they would have hoped. Whatever shielded those ships was far more powerful than what he had at his disposal. His fleet ranged from class 3 to 5, though his three battleships supported a class 6 shield with a large shield generator that could reacharge at a much faster rate than what the Noveim had.

The no-show of the Darlock ship had everyone a bit on edge, though they were going to proceed with the same plan. The Darlock ships were all cloaked and had taken lead positions in the fleet. The hope was that the Antarans would mobilize based on the Psilon ships that they could see and then be surprised by an attack from both sides. The Darlocks had been true to their word on the cloaking technology, as they headed to the site, their scanners could pick up the Darlock ships... sort of. As Vrell had said, they wouldn't likely be able to get an accurate shot, but they could get a rough idea where they were at. The capture ships were to concentrate on one or two of the smaller ships. Their only goal was to take them alive. Kelvim knew it was a long shot, but one intact Antaran ship would be worth more in usable technology than the entire debris field. They had been rehearsing this plan for several days. It seemed like the best option to minimize death tolls. Kelvim wasn't afraid of death, most Psilons weren't very concerned about it, but he was certain there would be alot of it. That thought was interrupted by the Psilon battle alarms. They were in range of their short term scanners.

"Report." Kelvim ordered his communications officer. "Scanners are showing 25 ships..." came an uneasy pause, "and one of them is massive," stammered the young officer.

"Link computers." Kelvim ordered. Looking at his own comms screen, he could see what concerned the young officer. That ship was indeed massive, dwarfing his own ship. They had numbers, but taking this thing down was going to be a challenge. The Antarans could see them as well and were already mobilizing. Their only exit from this battlefield would be in victory or death.

It was the Antarans that struck first, much to Kelvim's surprise as well as the Darlock ships that were at the center of the attack. The Psilons were not yet in weapons range and the Darlocks were cloaked. That apparently didn't matter. Almost immediately the coms lit up with chatter, as the remaining Darlock captains screamed in near unison "They can see us!" The attack scattered the Darlock wing as their captains franticly de-cloaked and raised their shields. Before the battle had even begun, three Darlock cruisers and a heavy cruiser had been reduced to floating debris.

While their initial attack caught everyone by surprise, it had forced the Antaran fleet to engage the Darlocks on the right side of his fleet. Seeing the advantage it posed, Dural took action next, sending his fleet directly into the Antaran flank. Kelvim didn't need to hear Dural's orders to know his role, as he swiftly swung his fleet around to the Antaran rear. The PeackeMaker's first engagement in battle came against an Antaran destroyer class ship. The entire ship shuddered as the powerful plasma cannons fired, leaving the destroyer crippled. The capture ships behind him knew their role and immediately headed towards the crippled destroyer. Kelvim's next target was a small Antaran scout ship scoring their first kill. But there was no time to celebrate, as the PeaceMaker was suddenly rocked by a blast from an Antaran heavy cruiser. "Shields at 50 percent," came the shout from his weapons officer. Instinctively, the PeaceMaker's pilot rotated the ship to move the exposed area away from the Antaran's line of fire. The Antaran ship, realizing that this wasn't an easy target fired on and obliterated one of the capture ships that had descended on the crippled Antaran destroyer. That would be it's last shot, as the PeaceMaker along with its five escorts fired their plasma and phasor cannons without mercy. With no ships in the immediate path, Kelvim's ships had the Antaran rear directly in front of him. He ordered his missile carriers to fire at the exposed Antaran ship's engines with the PeaceMaker and its escorts moving at full speed ahead.

As his fleet followed the missile volley, Kelvim surveyed the Antanran ships to see what the next approach should be. Despite the initial casualties, the battle appeared to be going well. The Darlocks had taken the brunt of the casualties, as a third of their ships had been destroyed in the initial engagement. Several more had been crippled, firing when they were capable, but incapable of changing direction. The Psilon fleet was at this point relatively unscathed. Two heavy cruisers had been destroyed and several more ships had sustained some serious damage. The Antarans were now down ten ships, and several more had taken heavy damage. The Noveim had managed to maneuver itself behind the Antaran lines, and while its weapons weren't strong enough to do much damage, it was providing an excellent disruptive force causing several Antaran captains to direct fire at it. While it was one of the oldest ships in Kelvim's fleet, whatever magic the Alkari used in its design still made it the fastest ship out there, and Actesh clearly had it working at maximum efficiency.

The Doomstar, oddly enough, had fallen back, taking a defensive stance around the small derelict destroyer that they had found in the debris field. "What could be so important about that ship?" Kelvim thought as his fleet moved closer to the raging battle. That thought was interrupted by the frantic shouts of his battle commander. "The doomstar is charging some sort of weapon," he shouted. "There's a huge quantum radiation spike coming from it." Kelvim cringed waiting to see what was next, but they saw nothing on the view screens nor heard anything on the coms chatter indicating that the doomstar had fired. Kelvim's science officer, who typically sat quiet during the battles, spoke up. "That thing just created a small black hole." Kelvim noticed it too, as the PeaceMaker's view screen was now distorted, as light itself was being bent by the presence of the singularity. The ship's pilot adjusted immediately as a new gravitational center had been formed. The black hole hadn't been targeted at any of his ships, but instead at the wreck of an ancient doomstar. The derelict ship acted next, firing some an unknown pulse into the black hole. Seconds later, it fired a different gravitational pulse at each of the three Neutron stars that they had investigated on the Noveim. Kelvim was surprised most by the speed of these graviton beams. They seemed uninhibited by the dampening field that affected the entire area. Those beams were continuous, and they would reach those stars in short order; and strangely enough, the ship charted a course that would take it directly into the event horizon.

Kelvim's observation was interrupted by the impact of his missiles striking several of the Antaran ships destroying two more of them. "Target that battleship," he ordered, as his attack fleet vectored in to destroy the second largest ship in the Antaran fleet. This ship was roughly the same size as Kelvim's PeaceMaker, and its heavy mounted Particle beams were clearly dangerous. As they approached, it destroyed a Psilon cruiser in a single shot and crippled a Darlock heavy cruiser on approach behind it. From it's bow, Dural's WidowMaker and the third Psilon battleship were firing their plasma cannons. Three of Dural's cruisers and Kelvim's five escorts also opened fire. While the Antaran ships were superior in technology, being outnumbered was clearly starting to take it's toll. The battleship returned fire, not targeting the larger ships, but at the smaller support vessels destroying two more Psilon ships before the barrage of beam fire finally took its toll. The Antaran ship exploded with such a force that it crippled one of Kelvim's escorts that was too close to the battleship when it exploded.

Their celebration was short lived as Admiral Vrell's heavy cruiser was obliterated in a single shot: the doomstar was no longer protecting that derelict ship. "Evasive maneuvers" was the universal order heard throughout the coms systems. All ships immediately began randomized engine microbursts designed to make it difficult for their enemy to target them. While the bursts didn't change the overall course of the ships by much, they could nearly instantly move the ships several miles off course, just enough to make a beam weapon miss. This would not be flawless, as it could disrupt their own targeting systems, not to mention that it was a short lived solution. The strategy worked as the Doomstar's next target was Kelvim's ship, missing by a margin that made him very uncomfortable. "Target the next missile volley at that doomstar's engines," Kelvim ordered his attack wing. He could hear Dural shouting the same over the comm. From his navigation screen, he quickly glanced at the black hole that the doomstar had created. It was growing in size, but it's gravitational strength was waning. The derelict ship had entered the event horizon and continued to fire an unknown pulse into it. It's gravitational beams had reached the three nearby neutron stars and he could see from the PeaceMaker's long range scans that they were swelling themselves, as if they were going to explode. From the black hole's center, light was now escaping, and a ball of light appeared to be forming. Kelvim didn't have time to contemplate what was going on as the doomstar fired it's black hole generator. He watched in horror as it completely engulfed the third Psilon battleship. Communications with it were immediately lost. It's speed was rapidly decellerating, and the power of its weapons fire was also clearly weakening. Kelvim silently wondered about the horror the crew was going through until he suddenly realized that inside that black hole, time likely was at a stop. Those crew members were either oblivious or would literally die of old age before the ship collapsed in on itself. His thoughts were quickly cutoff by reports of the missile volley's impacting the doomstar. The explosive force had pierced whatever type of dampening field the Antaran ship was using, and had even caused some significant damage to it's armor and hull, yet the ship continued to move. It's next attack destroyed two more Psilon heavy cruisers and a Darlock cruiser with an ease that made it clear that they had to do something quickly. While the other Antaran ships were rapidly being destroyed, this doomstar was not going to go easily. "Target all weapons at that point of impact," Kelvim ordered. "That thing has it's own gravitational mass, any ships carrying bombs should make a low pass and drop them over that same point." Kelvim could hear Dural making the same order. Within seconds, five Psilon ships and two Darlock ships approached the doomstar on a bombing run while the PeaceMaker, WidowMaker, and a dozen more ships all targeted that same location. This pass was more successful, opening a large hole in the doomstar's outer hull, but it came at a cost as the Doomstar wiped out three more ships.

The comms were suddenly flooded by the unintelligble cry of what could only be Alkari. Actesh had piloted the Noveim behind the bombing run and flew it directly into the new opening in the doomstar's hull. As the Noveim entered the opening, it fired all of it's weapons. "We're seeing massive internal explosions; its sublight engines are disabled!" came the shout of a communications officer. The doomstar, while still lethal in it's weapon's capacity, was now moving in only a straight vector, no longer changing course on its approach, and microsecond's later, the Noveim dropped off the comms as additional explosions were detected. Kelvim would later come to suspect that the Noveim's sacrifice had ruptured the doomstars fuel cell, only to destabilize one of the Antaran ship's interal power supplies. Whatever it was, the ship was no longer under its own control. Kelvim heard Dural react instantaneously, ordering his attack wing to target another section of the ship. This attack changed the doomstar's vector, and now it was headed towards the black hole that was swallowing the Psilon battleship. Kelvim maneuver's his remaing ships behind the vector and fired all weapons. The attack did some damage to the doomstar, but did more to speed up its course. The Antaran's aboard the ship seemed to recognize their danger, now firing all of their particle beams simultaneously at the same target, destroying a Psion heavy cruiser in the process, but the lack of engine power combined with the gravitational well of the micro black hole was too much. The doomstar headed uncontrollably into the event horizon of the collapsing black hole. The gravitational force from the implosion was stripping away large portion of the ship's hull, and suddenly, the dampening field protecting the ship was no longer functioning. Two dozen attack ships were no firing at the dying ship. Minutes later it detonated, but the explosion was muted by the gravitational pull of the collapsing singularity. Even with that, Kelvim's ship suffered significant damage, losing hull presure on several decks. A nearby cruiser was completely crippled.

Kelvim now had a chance to look back at his view screen. The Antaran ships had been destroyed, though the casualties had been severe. The Darlocks had sent twenty five ships into the battle, only five were in good condition, sustaining only light damages. Fifteen had been destroyed, and five more were crippled. The Psilon fleet was in better shape. Of the forty one Psilon ships, ten had been destroyed and another seven had suffered severe damages. His own was still capable of combat and could even enter FTL if needs be. Attempts were already underway to repair and rescue crew and ships that were salvageable from the battle. From his view screen Kelvim looked again at the fissure created by the first black hole. It had grown substantially, so much so that the ball of light was now had space at its center. The three neutron stars were also forming their own singularities. They were unstable, but the gravitational well appeared to be pulling back layers of space and time itself. At its center, the PeaceMaker's scanners were now seeing a star... and it was orbited by three planets, and several dozen more Antaran ships. Kelvim heard Dural utter something in Bulrathi. He was no expert at other languages or the nuances of Bulrathi explicatives, but what he did understand was something he too had realized. Serene was right. A yellow star was forming on their navigational maps and a hundred Antaran ships were now on approach.

"Status?" Kelvim nervously asked even though he was pretty certain he knew the answer. "They will be here in an hour," replied his comms officer. "That said," he continued, "The dampening field surrounding this area appears to be lifted."

"Gather what survivors you can, and make what repairs that you can, and then retreat." Kelvim ordered. Antaras has been reborn. Onhundred Antaran ships would not be enough to conquer the universe, but it certainly would keep the Psilons and Darlock's busy. As their FTL engines engaged, Kelvim thought fondly of the Noveim and its sacrifice. He hoped Actesh and his crew would experience the Alkari afterlife that the Actesh had so fondly told him of. His sacrifice had been valient, one which would certainly distinguish the Alkari's sacrifice. But now a bigger menace existed, and Kelvim feared there would be more sacrifice.